Exploring How Parent–Child Relationships Shape Child and Adolescent Mental Health over Time

Dear Colleagues,

Parent–child relationships form the emotional and developmental foundation of a child’s mental well-being. Across childhood and adolescence, these relationships—shaped by attachment, communication, parenting styles, and family dynamics—have a profound impact on the psychological health, emotional regulation, and resilience of young people. As developmental contexts evolve, so too do the influences of parenting, making it critical to examine these dynamics across time and diverse sociocultural settings.

In recent years, there has been growing recognition of how both protective and adverse aspects of the parent–child relationship contribute to the emergence, maintenance, or mitigation of mental health challenges in youth. This includes how early bonding experiences, ongoing parental support, or conflictual relationships interact with factors such as trauma, identity development, or peer influence.

This Special Issue aims to bring together original articles (both qualitative and quantitative analyses and cross-sectional and longitudinal studies), systematic reviews, and meta-analyses that explore the dynamic nature of parent–child relationships and their role in shaping child and adolescent mental health across developmental stages. We welcome submissions from psychology, education, public health, social work, communication, and related disciplines that investigate these connections through longitudinal, cross-sectional, and mixed-method designs, intervention studies, or cross-cultural perspectives.

We invite you to contribute to this timely Special Issue focused on advancing understanding and informing practice for healthier family systems and child and youth development.

Dr. Roi Estlein
Dr. Marie C. Haverfield
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the Special Issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. European Journal of Investigation in Health, Psychology and Education is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.